


Interruptions

by explodingnebulae



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drabble, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingnebulae/pseuds/explodingnebulae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully has finally managed to get something resembling a good night's sleep...until Mulder decides to call it at an ungodly time of night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interruptions

**Author's Note:**

> : I spent two hours trying to think of a damn title and I cannot stand the one I came up with. Anyway, this is just a little drabble that takes place some time between seasons four and five (though it could be any time before season eight). I figured that it's about time I posted something X-Files on this website.

“Hello…” came Scully’s groggy voice as she answered the telephone beside her bed. She had, upon hearing the first dreaded chime of its call, tried to ignore it with a sinking feeling of despondency. Subconsciously, Scully knew who was calling her the moment she glanced at her alarm clock. There was no one else—at least no one sane—who would call her 2:32 in the morning. “What is it, Mulder? What’s wrong?” She stretched silently and slid deeper under her covers. Feeling the hands of sleep inching closer to her, Scully turned around to face the light that seeped in through her bedroom window.

                There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. It was a surprised silence. “Nothing’s wrong, Scully,” he said plainly, then with partial remorse, “I woke you, didn’t I?” He knew he had. What he didn’t know was that it had been the soundest and most comfortable rest she had gotten in nearly two months. “Do you want me to call you back in the morning?”

                It was just a courtesy question but every fiber in her fatigued, and now shaky, body was telling her to answer in the affirmative. She wanted nothing more than to hang up, roll over, and go straight back to sleep. She couldn’t. She knew that she couldn’t. There was an expectant man on the other end of the call waiting to divulge some interesting piece of trivia that she most likely could not care less about. Regardless, Scully could not deny Mulder or his childlike enthusiasm lest she wound his boyish ego. She stretched again and gave a yawn, trying to shake the miniature tremors that plagued her body. Then, with a sigh and a considerable pause thereafter, Scully gave her response. “Mm…No, no. It’s fine, Mulder,” she said, though it was a fractional lie. “I’m awake now.” Truth.

                The last bits of her drowsiness had reorganized themselves into brutal awareness. She was awake now and the chances of returning to the beautiful slumber that she had been enveloped in only moments ago were washed away the second his voice sounded into her ear through the telephone. Scully was praying to God that what he had to say was not an absurd waste of her time. If it was, she was going to let it show in a few hours upon arriving at work. That was her only time for revenge and she wasn’t going to let him go unpunished if he was deserving of reprimand.

                “Sorry for waking you,” uttered Mulder, this time with clean sincerity. Scully knew from the subsequent pause that he was intentionally adding an unnecessary amount of suspense. He was on his way to being punished regardless of what he said next, thought Scully with a sort of smug annoyance. He could tell her, with undeniable proof and no evidence to the contrary, that he had found the bones of Christ atop Mount Rushmore. It would not hinder her from making his day a little less enjoyable. “Bear with me on this. I had a hard time believing it myself, but, uh, it’s legitimate.”

                “ _You_ had a hard time believing it? Mulder, whatever it is, I doubt that you had a hard time believing it. Up until a couple of months ago you still thought Elvis was alive,” she chided, her voice carrying the obvious smile on her features through the call and into his ear on the other end. Admittedly, her curiosity was piqued. It was not often that Mulder _did not_ believe in something. She knew he had no religious faith, something with which she had learned to cope, but other than that, there was nothing she could think of that he didn’t believe in. Fox Mulder was the master of conspiracy and all things spooky.

                There was a deflated pause on his end and she heard him sigh. “Scully, do you honestly think that the _king_ of rock n’ roll would die in that disgraceful of a manner?” Although his tone was jocular and light, Scully heard the blatant undertones of a reproach. He still believed it was a conspiracy. “Anyway, it’s about a case that was dropped on my desk two days ago. At first I believed it to be another dud, so I didn’t tell you about it. It sounds like something straight out of a bedtime story an older sibling tells their kid brother or sister to make ensure they don’t go to sleep. Everyone above the age of ten knows that the Boogie Man isn’t real—”

                “Wow, Mulder. I never thought I’d hear you say those words,” interrupted Scully with a scoff, but he didn’t seem to notice. She shimmied herself up out of her covers and propped herself against her pillows. The air in her bedroom was chilly and she made a mental note to manipulate the thermostat after they hung up.

                “—but upon reviewing the details, I think we might have a case. Seven kids all abducted from their homes in the middle of the night. No sign of entry, no sign of exit. No note, no anything… _except_ a strange smell and a trail of an unidentified substance coming either directly from under the beds or leading to the closets of the children. The local PD has already taken samples of the substance and decided that it was definitely organic.” Upon finishing, Mulder took a moment to breathe. Silence followed his brief monologue. “You still there, Scully?”

                “Yeah…yeah. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it,” she said with both confusion and slight disappointment. Scully realized that she had been anticipating something other than a call about work. Maybe she had wanted to discover that Mulder had uncovered the bones of the Son of God and Man atop a manmade monument commemorating the finest presidents of the nation. Why would he get her thinking about a case when they could just discuss it in five hours while they sat in their basement and reviewed different files? Furthermore, she wanted to know why he was up at 2:30 looking at cases.  “What makes you think it’s the Boogie Man? Children are abducted with no trace evidence all the time, Mulder. This could just be some sick bastard’s way of covering up his tracks and you have to consider that creeps come in all shapes and sizes. He could be a biochemist who concocted this substance at three o’clock in the morning in his basement.” He was definitely going to pay for this tomorrow.

                “So, you think it’s more plausible for a man of science, who also happens to possess a scholarly knowledge of the art of breaking and entering, to have abducted these children than to allow your former childhood self to know that her fear of the things that went bump in the night were justified?” he asked with a staggering amount of both sincerity and curiosity.

                “Yes, Mulder. Mainly because I didn’t believe in the Boogie Man when I was a kid. I knew that the shadows on the wall were only shadows. As for the noises…” She paused to rub her temple then her eye. “…they were nothing but the everyday sounds of the house. Besides, I grew up primarily on military bases. There was always some sort of background noise. You learned to deal with it.”

                Her limbs were growing tired again and her mind, although ready to counter anymore wild theories her partner could throw at her, was slowing. Her body was giving her a chance to salvage what she could of her previous slumber and she wasn’t going to let it get away from her. “As for this conversation, Mulder, I’m going to request that we continue it in person at work tomorrow. Try and get some sleep.”

                “Yeah, sure, Scully. I just thought I’d run that by you and get your opinion while the thought was still fresh in my mind,” he said before yawning. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Goodnight.”

                “Goodnight, Mulder,” she returned before hearing the line go dead on her end. Scully turned over and returned the phone to the receiver. With the unanticipated wave of fatigue, Scully thought over her previous decision to turn up the thermostat and decided against it.

She sank deeply under her covers and thought of the upcoming case for a short moment. Scully had learned a couple things tonight. One; Mulder still believed that Elvis Presley was alive, or at least he didn’t die the way they say he did. Two; her partner believed in the Boogie Man until he was at least ten years of age and that belief was now resurfacing. Three; there were seven families that needed an explanation as to the disappearance of their children beyond a monster that was designed to scare little ones at night. That was the thought she clung onto as she drifted into sleep. There were families that needed the aid of the FBI to find their children. She did not sleep soundly for the rest of the night.


End file.
